Is this fetish or brand identity?

White Windsor typeface on black

White type on black opening titles rolling on old jazz or classical music became a part of Woody Allen brand.

In a time when movie titles become more and more of a clueless "me too!" affair1, Woody Allen’s unique (and relentless) typographic style is entirely praiseworthy. His white type on black opening titles rolling on old jazz or classical music became a part of Woody Allen brand, just like his neurotic dialogues and "his black-rimmed glasses"2 are.

Windsor is an unusual design cut by Stephenson Blake3 in 1905. Windsor is a bold face with heavy rounded serifs and strong diagonal stress. Capitals M and W are widely splayed, P and R have very large upper bowls. The Lowercase a h m and n of the Windsor font have angled right hand stems, e has an angled cross-stroke. The overall effect is one of friendliness and warmth. Use the Windsor font in advertising, on posters and for general display work.

Ed Benguiat, the "printer"

How did Woody Allen chose this typeface? In a previous iteration of this post, the mystery of Woody Allen's typeface of choice was solved by this amazing story posted by Randy J. Hunt in the comments (thank you, Randy):

Benguiat had an affinity for Windsor and suggested it to him that morning. He’s used it in every film since.

I'm currently taking a typeface design course with Ed Benguiat, and just last night he described a time when he would have breakfast at the same New Jersey diner every morning. Among the other that would dine there was Woody Allen. On one occasion, referring to Benguiat as a "printer," Allen asked him what a good typeface was. Benguiat had an affinity for Windsor and suggested it to him that morning. He's used it in every film since.

This New Jersey breakfast with Ed Benguiat must've happened sometime between '75 and '77, because in Love and Death (1975) the titles (although already white type on black background) are set in another serif, while in Annie Hall (1977) Windsor is there, in the largest size of all his titles.

It is also interesting that after Annie Hall (1977) Woody Allen betrays Windsor—Interiors (1978) titles are set in a News Gothic-ish sans serif—only to return to it for Mahattan in 1979.

All very nicely worded and all technically correct. Thank you all for the factual feedback on Mr. Allen. One other person needs a little thanks for his opinion on the use of Windsor was Corbet Monica, who was at the dinner every Sat & Sun. He played in the movie "Broadway Danny Rose."

Story confirmed. What a beautiful surprise!

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Down to business

So I dug up my movies (okay, most of them are borrowed, while Stardust Memories, September, Another Woman, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Alice and Shadows and Fog screenshots are from Scott Steffens' Contact Sheet) and took some captures.

Book covers

Mere Anarchy (2007)—out of his many books, it seems that only this one complies to the rule:

It seems Windsor Regular though, not Elongated, nor Condensed.

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Final

Truth is, I don't know whether this is a Kubrick-eque case of typographic fetish4 or if Woody Allen built a visual identity in order to brand his products.

Contribute

As you can see, the are a few titles left without a confirming screenshot. If you happen o have (or have access to) the respective movies, please submit the missing screenshots (along with your name and URL if you don't want to remain anonymous).

2 From Manhattan (1979) opening monologue: "Chapter one. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.—I love this.—New York was his town and it always would be."

3 Wikipedia page on Windsor specifies: "Windsor is an old style serif display typeface created in 1905 by Eleisha Pechey. Besides the basic font it is also available in two other styles, Light and Roman. Various foundries introduced minor variations so that today there are versions by Linotype, Elsner+Flake, URW+++, Mecanorma and Stephenson Blake."

Speaking of films as books, it's interesting that the poster and the DVD cover are often designed in a way that has nothing to do with the movie's title sequences. Woody Allen's movies can epitomize this school of thought where the two are disjunct.

itc_james:

I believe the title sequence issue is covered in the book "Woody on Woody". It's been awhile since I've read it, but here is what I can remember. 1) He was given a budget of let's say $200,000 for title sequences. So, the less he spends on titles the more he can spend elsewhere or "make up", if he was running over budget. 2) It was also an homage to the late great Ingmar Bergman who also used the same typeface repeatedly. Another homage, to Bergman, was the absence of music in Annie Hall. And remember, Woody wanted Bergman to appear in Annie Hall as the director in the theatre scene. However Bergman refused to leave Faro.

Michael Cimino also used white Windsor on black for (IIRC) The Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate. Don't have copies of his other films to hand to check those.

There's a few other directors who do this with titles but they're rarely so consistent across such a length of time as Woody Allen. Offhand the main one I can think of is John Carpenter. I haven't seen a film of his for years but he used to favour white Albertus on black for his titles.

What is it with Woody Allen and Windsor Elongated? The stand-up comedian slash writer slash auteur director has used the little known font for the titles of at least 24 of his 43 (yes, that’s forty-three) films. Cristian ‘Kit’...

I have credited Scott Steffens’ Contact Sheet already—a few captures originate from there. The Tipographica thread doesn't shed too much light into this, though (they're more focused on Signs and Catch Me If You Can).

gerald`:

the cover for "mere anarchy" depends on the edition and publisher; I'm at work at a bookstore and our covers are matte black, with Woody Allen in white, Mere Anarchy in orange (with the Y falling away from the rest of the word), and the whole thing in a lightweight modernist sans serif whose name I can't remember

Speaking as both a Woody Allen & typography obsessive, great article! All of the missing films on your list comply with Woody's use of Windsor. Actually I can't speak for Cassandra's Dream, as I haven't seen it yet.

Oh my god, YOU ARE SO WRONG. I'm sorry. No, it is not EF WINDSOR ELONGATED. It is EF WINDSOR LIGHT CONDENSED. Please compare the images of the titles credits you show and the previews availables at Fonts.com

It's a terrific example of how a film's tone can be set by aspects that are almost universally-overlooked by critics and scholars.

In my perfect world, there'd be an Academy Award for typesetting or type-writing. There was, actually, such an award in the first two years of the Oscars -- but as "talkies" replaced the silent film, the need to recognize those who engineered visual text production faded as well.

I saw the trailer for Cassandra’s Dream this weekend, and if that's any kind of useful indication it looks to me like W.A.'s changed direction for his next film. I can't say for certain, but I remember thinking it looked like Myriad in the titles, which seemed sort of shocking!

Kitblog has a nice piece about Windsor-EF Elongated, the typeface Woody Allen uses in the titles of nearly all his movies. It includes screengrabs of lots of Allen movies that use white Windsor on black. How did Woody Allen chose this typeface? In a pr...

Soojin Lee:

Whenever I watch a Woody Allen film I've never seen before, the opening credits serve as Pavlovian conditioning for me. I see the white Windsor-EF Elongated and a warm smile embraces my being, for I know that the next 100 minutes of my life will be enraptured by a dialogue between my two favourite Allen characters: wit and heart.

It's definitely Windsor Light Condensed, not Elongated. The variations in weight in the titles are most likely due either to differences in exposure or the use of different versions of Windsor Light Condensed.

Places like Photo-Lettering Inc. in NYC (where Ed Benguiat created hundreds of typeface designs) often offered finely graded weightings of popular designs. So, if you wanted something like Windsor Light Condensed, but a little bolder or a little lighter, you could get it. Even with the tens of thousands of digital fonts available today, there are whole libraries of fonts that have never been digitized. Just because all we have today is a handful of Windsor fonts doesn't mean that's all there has ever been.

i just finished viewing his latest films 'victoria christina barcelona' and 'cassandra's dream' and they both comply with the rule. there is a certain comfort in watching a group of work that has a thread, even in minute details such as fonts for its credits. i love that you've done a substantial research on the obscure [well to most of the populace anyway] a subject as typography, a subject that interests me. and especially as it pertains to the oeuvre of woody allen, another area of interest.

Yvves:

First comment: ok, Mighty Aphrodite is set on 2 lines, but Vicky Cristina Barcelona is set on 3. Hence, the sentence "it’s interesting that this one is the only title I found set on two lines (the rest are one-liners)" has to be updated.

Second comment: as said in other comments, it might be interesting to show films that are not compliant. You will find here (http://www.contactsheet.org/articles/woodys_typeface.html) some examples, such as Bananas, Everything..., Sleeper, Love & Death, Interiors.

Third comment: on your IMDB list, you can remove the 36 (The Concert for New York City), which is only the big concert in which can be seen the 35 (Sounds From A Town I Love).

Anyway, thanks for your wonderful post, thanks for the updates you make with each Woody new film.

Yvves:

Updates :
1/ Whatever obviously respects the rule and teh title is dispatched on one line only (on the contrary of Mighty Aphrodite and Vicky Cristina Barcelona).
2/ Your 44th item, has an official title: You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger. For sure it will be compliant, the only remaining question is: on how many lines will it be dispatched?

Yvves:

Ed Benguiat:

All very nicely worded and all technically correct.
Thank you all for the factual feedback on Mr. Allen.
One other person needs a little thanks for his opinion
on the use of Windsor was Corbet Monica, who was at the dinner
every Sat & Sun.
He played in the movie "Broadway Danny Rose"

Yvves:

Congratulations for these wonderful updates (including non compliant titles). There are now 3 "particular" titles:
* Mighty Aphrodite set on 2 lines.
* Vicky Cristina Barcelona & You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger set on 3.

So you can updates comments of films 28 ("(the rest are one-liners" is no more true), 42 & 46.

- You often work with the same people, same music sources, the same characters... Even your credits are written in the same font, Windsor...
- I have my little habits. When I started, it was the fashion of crazy credits, as in "Pink Panther", and it absorbed half of the film budget. So I tried to do the same, but cheaper. For the generic "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex", the art director asked me to shoot a white room with white rabbits, which were sexual symbols. We have therefore hired two hundred. But on arrival, the rabbits were all crowded into a compact pile. We needed one more. We rented two hundred more! Same result! We then rentall white rabbits in Paris, there must be five thousand! And it still was not enough! At this point, I decided to keep it simple. And I have never changed.

Yvves:

"The projected title of each playlet, "Riverside Drive" and "Old Saybrook," is in the white-on-black typeface that Mr. Allen always uses for his film credits. (For the font-savvy, it's Windsor Light Condensed.)"

Woody has written approximately 10 plays, he directed only 3 ("Riverside Drive" and "Old Saybrook" in 2003, and "A Second Hand Memory" in 2004). It would be funny to see some photos of the Windsor part of these plays (for the 2004 play, I even don't know if he did).

Any NY inhabitant who would share that (I did not find anything on the Web so far)?

YVVES:

Small updates:
#50 Café Society is compliant
#51 is not a film (the 2017 film will be shot this fall) but the Amazon series: Crisis in six scenes, in classical Windsor as usual (cf. last seconds of the trailer that has just appeared on the Net: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNLUUfFLlQ0)